Who sees a slow-cooker recipe and decides it would be a great idea to turn it into a stove-top recipe? Yes, that would be me.

Don't get me wrong. I adore my slow cooker. I try to make a dinner date with it at least once a week, especially in fall and winter when it really lends itself to hearty soups and stews and the like.

Why would I do such a thing? Because in the case of this recipe for chicken and rice chowder, I could do it faster and more healthfully on the stove.

The recipe was something I found crammed into the back of a binder where I keep other recipes I have clipped or, in this case ripped, from magazines or newspapers.

It was a jagged-edge little piece of newsprint. I could not for the life of me remember when or where I had come across it. All I knew was that it sure sounded tasty. Except a couple nagging little things.

It called for a can of cream of mushroom soup and a boxed, pre-seasoned wild rice mix. Which would mean loads of sodium going into the soup pot. Yes, there is still sodium in here. But I like the idea of minimizing it where I can.

I do I love cooking shortcuts. I even take one in this recipe, using the meat from a pre-cooked rotisserie chicken.

And as a soup fanatic, I love cream of mushroom soup. Just not the kind from a can. Shortcut or not, there is just something about that canned version, no matter the brands I have tried, that tastes metallic and just not good to me.

Other than that, the mix of chicken, veggies and rice in a hearty chowder base sounded perfect for a cold winter evening.

So I figured I could swap out the cream-of soup for simple from-scratch white sauce made with low-fat and low-sodium chicken broth, plus low-fat milk. To solve the rice problem, I opted for a blend of four types of rice and some salt-free seasoning mix that I like from Costco.

There was just one more problem: time. The recipe called for cooking this in the slow cooker for 3 hours. My dilemma was that I needed something that I could put in the cooker and ignore for the whole day while I was out or I needed something that I could cook on the stove in under an hour when I got home.

Thinking about rice bubbling away in a slow cooker for 8 hours sealed it for me. Cooking it on the stove was the way to go to ensure the veggies and rice and chicken would still have their own texture and not be a messy mush.

There was plenty of flavor from the seasoning mix and some black pepper added at the end. The base of the chowder was rich and delicious, without that processed flavor that comes from canned soup.

I am not sure I would try to convert all my favorite slow-cooker recipes this way. But in this case leaving the Crock Pot in the cabinet was the right way to go.

Chicken and mixed rice chowder is loaded with carrots, celery and mushrooms. A homemade white sauce is used to thicken the soup. JILL L. REED, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Celery, carrots and brown mushrooms give chicken and mixed rice chowder extra flavor and color. JILL L. REED, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
A mix of rice including red, brown, wild and something called Tex-mati goes into a hearty chowder that also includes chicken, carrots, celery and mushrooms. JILL L. REED, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Thick and hearty chicken and mixed rice chowder can be done in less than an hour. It is based on a recipe that called for using canned soup as a thickener and pre-seasoned rice mix. To cut the sodium, this version uses salt-free seasoning mix and a blend of rices. The soup is thickened with a homemade white sauce. JILL L. REED, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
A mix that includes four types of rices goes into chicken and rice chowder. JILL L. REED, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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